


Diary of a Semi Mer

by reader1718



Category: No Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-05 14:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3123761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reader1718/pseuds/reader1718
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if you found out your father was a human and your mother was a mermaid, but you yourself were neither? This is what happens to young Tony Wyzek one day when he falls in the water and makes a surprising discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diary of a Semi Mer

Diary of a Semi-Mer

“Man, I can’t believe you’re going to be thirteen tomorrow,” Riff said to his best friend Tony Wyzek. “I know. I can’t wait. It’s amazing. Well, I gotta go,” Tony said, running off down the dock. Just then, Riff saw a huge puddle of water in Tony’s path that would make the dock super slippery for his friend. “Tony, watch out!” Riff cried, but it was too late. Tony slipped on the water and fell into the East River. “Tony! Where are you? Answer me!” Riff cried out, searching anxiously for his best friend. “Over here!” Tony called and Riff rushed over to his side. In the meantime, though, Tony felt something weird happening to his legs. It seemed like they were stuck together with glue or like they were as stiff as a board, then he was able to bend them again, but they still felt as if they were glued together. Tony glanced down, saw what was happening, and gasped. He knew he couldn’t let Riff see him like this.

“Tony, give me your hand! I’ll pull you out!” Riff shouted. “No, don’t. I’ll swim over to those rocks and you can help me get out there, okay? Please, just do it,” Tony said, desperately. He swam over to his friends and Riff pulled him out. As he got out of the water, Tony felt his legs go numb, but then separate again. He pretended like nothing was wrong, but he couldn’t help feeling like something was. “Tony, what happened to you? Are you okay?” Riff asked him. “Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t know what happened. Let’s just go, okay? I need to go home,” Tony said, trying to pretend like nothing had happened, but he knew that something had. For Tony had seen something no one else had. When his legs had been transformed under the water, they had become a tail. Tony had become a merman. There was only one person who could explain what had happened and why—his father.

“Dad! Where are you? I need to talk to you,” Tony called when he got home. He and his dad lived on a boat out by the docks with a trapdoor in the bottom and a gangplank you had to cross to get onto it. Only his dad could answer the question of what had happened to him a little bit ago. “Hey, sport. I didn’t know you were home. What’s up?” Jack Wyzek asked. “Don’t you ‘what’s up’ me. Something happened to me today and I think you might know why,” Tony said. “What’s wrong with you? What happened? I don’t know what in the heck you’re talking about,” Jack said. “Okay, well, I’ll show you what in the heck I’m talking about. I’m going to go get my swim trunks on and you will see what the heck is going on. Just meet me in the bathroom, okay?” Tony said. He went to the bathroom and started the water running in the bathtub, then went to his room and put on his trunks, then headed back into the bathroom to find his dad waiting for him. “Are you going to tell me what the heck you’re talking about?” his dad asked. “I’m talking about this,” Tony said as he shut the water off, climbed into the now full tub, and submerged his legs waiting for what he hoped was going to happen. Sure enough, in a matter of moments his legs became stiff as a board and glued themselves together. His legs shimmered slightly, then became a long green fish tail. “Oh my gosh!” Jack cried, backing away from Tony in shock. “What is this? What is wrong with me? What am I?” Tony asked.

“I always knew something like this would probably happen. I knew it the day you were born. Your mother was taken away from me and I was given a drug to prevent me from remembering her or anything about her people, but recently I started to remember everything. I don’t know exactly where they took your mother, but I can tell you this. Your mother was a mermaid. That’s why you’re like this. I have had to pretend I don’t remember and not seek your mom out in order for them not to drug me again. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but you wouldn’t have believed me if this hadn’t happened. You’re what is called a semi-mer by your mom’s people. It means you’re half mermaid and half human. Your mom wasn’t allowed to keep you or have any contact with you for that reason. I’m sorry for all the trouble this is causing you, but it’s the way you are,” Jack explained to Tony patiently.

“So you’re telling me that any time I get in the water like that, that’s what’s going to happen? I don’t believe this. People already think I’m weird enough,” Tony said. He didn’t know what he would tell his friends. They certainly would never believe him if he told them he was half mermaid. He knew he’d have to keep his tail a secret, so it would mean going swimming only at night. So that night he snuck out of his room, off the boat, and down to the water. He got in to see what would happen, and that was when he heard a splash and saw a head above the water accompanied by a green tail. A real mermaid, no wait, merman Tony corrected himself as he realized the figure was definitely male not female. He wanted to meet this guy who was so like himself. “Hi there. My name’s Tony. What’s yours?” Tony called to the mysterious merman. The young merman turned, saw him, and swam away quickly. “No, wait, I’m a merman too. Please come back. I just want to talk.” Tony climbed into the water and waited for his tail to form, then quickly swam after the young merman. Finally the merman stopped and turned around just sitting there in the water looking at him. “Wow, you weren’t kidding were you? My name’s Alex by the way. I’ve never seen anyone who has legs on land and a tail in the sea before. What’s your last name? I’ve never seen you around before. Do you go to my school?” the merman—Alex—asked.

“My last name’s Wyzek and I probably don’t go to your school. I don’t even know who my mom was. My dad says she was taken away from him not long after I was born and I don’t know where she is. She was a mermaid, but my dad was human. Apparently that’s why I can transition back and forth like that,” Tony explained, waiting for Alex to look at him with pity or scorn because of what he was. “Oh my gosh! You’re a semi-mer! I’ve never met one before, but I’ve always wondered about them. You know what? I think we have some books on human-mermaid marriages in the library at school and I just bet they could give you a clue as to who your mom might be and what happened to her. A lot of mermaids and mermen who break the no marrying outside your own kind rule end up in Neptune’s prison, but there is no guarantee that’s where they’ve taken your mom. The books in the library could tell us, though. Can you meet me here Saturday morning? That’s when we have school and if you come with me to history class you might learn something that will help you. Besides, we really can’t look in the library books in-depth until after school anyway. We can even hang out other times before that if you want to. So what do you say?” Alex asked him. “Well, I have to get permission from my dad and make excuses to my human friends to explain why I can’t hang out with them, but if that all goes well, okay,” Tony said. “Great. Be there at seven o’clock. School starts at eight and we’ll have a ways to go from here,” Alex told him. He and Tony then parted ways and Tony swam back to the boat. He then headed off to bed so he could meet Alex the next night.

His dad immediately gave permission for Tony to hang out with his merman friend on the condition that he not cause any trouble trying to find out about his mother. The next day, Riff and the Jets came onto the boat to ask Tony if he wanted to go get some coffee with them that morning. Tony had arranged to meet Alex at night, so he could go get coffee with them and meet Alex without causing the Jets to be suspicious. Meeting at night also ensured they wouldn’t be seen by any humans. Alex showed Tony all around the ocean, including his favorite spots to hang out and his favorite rocks to sit on. Finally Saturday came and Tony was ready. He made an excuse as to why he couldn’t hang out with his friends, then got ready to meet Alex and go to merman school.

 

Alex took him through several undersea passages and down into a cave where they came out into a pocket of air. They each took their places on rocks around the room and waited on the teacher. Fortunately, the rocks were still under the water even if they weren’t, so Tony’s tail didn’t vanish. Then the teacher, Ms. Ripplefin, came in and started the lesson. They learned about famous shipwrecks that day and Ms. Ripplefin passed around debris from some of them. they went from class to class and learning a lot of things he didn’t know before. After the classes were over for the day, Tony had the idea of trying to find the very famous shipwreck of the Destiny that Ms. Ripplefin had mentioned. He thought it would be really cool to see it since he’d never actually seen one before. So using Alex’s splishometer (a device that measured how far they’d been swimming) they swam out to the shipwreck. When they got inside it, though, Tony gasped. The shipwreck looked familiar. It sounded like something out of a poem he’d read once and he had a really funny feeling the whole time they were there. Then they discovered that a trapdoor in the wreck led into the lighthouse out on Long Island. There they found a chest containing information on Tony’s family, including his mother, who turned out to be named Mariana Finsnap. It also mentioned that they’d been giving his dad memory drugs to erase his memory of Mariana just as Jack had told him. It mentioned that he’d finally been revealed to have the mer gene just like his mother. The most important information, though, concerned where his mother was—in Neptune’s prison, cell N44. Finally he asked to go back since they needed to find out about the mixed marriages.

They got to the library and found the scrolls that talked about marriages between humans and merpeople. There they read about Mariana’s marriage to an unnamed human. It was one of the most famous marriages to happen in the area. He resolved to ask his father about it as soon as possible. He went home and asked his father about his mom and, after his father finished lecturing him about stirring up trouble, he finally admitted that Tony was right. Mariana was his mother. He made Tony promise not to go stirring up any more trouble or trying to find his mother, but Tony had his fingers crossed. He was bound and determined to find her and see her. His friends in the Jets gang noticed he was preoccupied, but all their attempts to find out what was wrong with him were met with nothing but stuff that was too cryptic to understand.

The next day, Tony decided he would try to swim to the prison and find his mother. he and Alex tried it that night and managed to get in through a weak spot in the coral wall that surrounded it. Tony swam along the corridors until he finally found his mother’s prison cell. Then using keys he’d swiped from a guard along the way, Tony opened the cell door and finally came face to face with his mother. At first Mariana wasn’t sure who he was since she hadn’t seen him since he was a baby, but when Tony told her who he was, she recognized him and they embraced. He wanted to get her out of there, but found out that there was a tag attached to her tail that prevented her from leaving. So Tony had to leave her there when one of the guards came by, but before he left, she gave him some presents for his dad. Tony swam out through the spot in the wall they’d come in through before.

When Tony finally got home, he told his father about finding her and gave him the gifts Mariana had given him. Jack was still upset that Tony had gone to the prison, but he was happy to know how his wife was doing and have the gifts she’d sent him. However, they soon had other problems because Tony and Alex had been caught out by the prison. So they were put on trial by Neptune. He was going to dole out the worst punishment to them, but he was finally swayed by the pleas of Tony, Jack, and Mariana. He consented to let them stay together as long as no one else found out about mermaids in the process. Tony was allowed to go to school with Alex at Seapoint School. So the next day, Tony went with Alex to buy books on such things as Famous Shipwrecks of the World, and Sirens and Sailors. Then when Saturday came around they went off to school and Tony’s merman lessons began. Unfortunately, about a month after that, Tony’s big secret was discovered by some of the last people he expected to find out.

 

It had been a month and Tony hadn’t hung out with them at night once, Riff realized as he and the Jets walked down the main street of New York’s West Side. He always said he was hanging out with his mysterious new friend, Alex. But when Riff had asked to meet Alex, Tony had always made some excuse as to why it wouldn’t work out that time. This set Riff to wondering what was going on and he suspected Tony was hiding something. So that Saturday afternoon when Tony supposedly went to school, Riff and the other Jets went onto the boat where Tony lived to wait for him to come back, making sure to stay away from the trapdoor so they wouldn’t fall in the water. They also made sure Tony couldn’t see them so they could see what went on without his knowledge.

Soon enough, they heard Tony’s voice from the trapdoor. “Hi, dad! I’m home!” Tony called. “Hey, son! Come on up out of there, dry off, and get ready for dinner. Then you can tell me about your school day over dinner,” Jack called back. “Sure thing, pop!” Tony answered and hauled himself out through the trapdoor onto the deck of the boat. Riff gasped when he saw what had been hidden below the trapdoor—Tony’s tail! However, he then got an even bigger shock when the tail stiffened, lost its scales, separated, and turned into two legs before his eyes. “Oh my gosh! What the heck is that!?” Riff cried, startled. Tony turned around and got a fearful look in his eyes as he beheld his friends there staring at him. It was obvious they had seen his tail and what had happened to it. But the night’s surprises weren’t over yet. Things got worse in a matter of minutes as Alex swam up to the trapdoor and his big green fish tail was there for all of the Jets to see.

“Riff, I can explain everything. You have to promise not to tell anyone, though. The conditions that were set for me not getting punished for my recent activities were that no one could know about merpeople. If Neptune finds out that you know, I’LL be the one that gets in trouble and so will my parents. My mom was put in jail just for marrying my dad and having me. Please, don’t say anything,” Tony pleaded. “I won’t. No one would believe me anyway. You’d better have one heck of an explanation, though. I thought you were going to school on Saturdays, which doesn’t make sense anyway, not swimming around as a mermaid or something. Why did you lie, other than because this Neptune guy threatened to punish you if you did?” Riff asked his friend, completely confused. “First of all, I DIDN’T lie about the school thing. I’ve been going to a merman/mermaid school called Seapoint, which is why you saw me with a book bag and a tail. Second, I’m not completely a merman. I’m what’s called a semi-mer—half human, half merman. That’s why I’m not allowed to live under the water permanently like the others and have to live with Dad. I got in trouble recently for trying to find my mom and was put on trial for it. My mom, dad, and I managed to convince Neptune to be lenient, which is not an easy thing to do, considering that his temper is usually pretty short and he’s not exactly known for being merciful. So if he finds out that you know about me being a semi-mer, he might decide to put my mom back in jail, make us move to some godforsaken island somewhere or something even more horrible. Please keep this a secret for my sake so that nothing happens to me or any other semi-mers that might be out there. I only kept it a secret before Neptune’s ultimatum because I thought you’d think I was a freak for being half-and-half,” Tony explained.

Riff couldn’t believe it, Tony seemed more afraid of Neptune than of his secret being out. This Neptune guy must be one foul-tempered dude, he figured. He knew he needed to keep his friend’s secret or Tony might wind up in huge trouble. So he found Tony and he and the other boys promised to keep the secret and make sure Neptune remained unaware that they knew. They understood he needed a merman friend too so that he wouldn’t feel different and allowed him to hang out with Alex without feeling jealous. They were even there for him when another semi-mer, a girl named Emily Windsnap, found a ring that reminded Neptune of a very painful memory and he cursed Emily and all semi-mers to gradually lose their mermaid halves and look like humans with webbed fingers and toes. Finally, though, the other ring that had been part of the pair was brought together with it and everything born of hate was ended, which meant the curse was over. At that moment, Tony noticed the webbing on his fingers disappearing and figured out that the curse was ended. He leaped into the water with a splash, celebrating with Alex.

Things got even better, though, when Tony found out that Neptune had proclaimed merpeople and humans would be allowed to live together in peace from that point on. That meant Tony could be with both of his parents, not just one. It also meant that it was okay if Bernardo saw Tony’s tail because he wouldn’t get in trouble for it anymore. It also meant that Tony had another place to go if he needed to escape his life on land for a little while. Tony had never been so happy because now he could be a child of two worlds, which was what he’d always been meant to be. 

 

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